Laptop Voicemail from Dave

Which Sim? From Alex

Hi all you guys,

If i were going to use a flight simulator platform for general aviation flying, would it be logical to use x-plane or FSX? I know x-plane is more realistic in terms of aerodynamics, but the aircraft graphics are pathetic, compared to some pay-ware from FSX (carenado for example) However FSX is much more detailed in graphics, but in FSX, the aerodynamics are unrealistic because you just tell the airplane how fast it goes, how steep it can turn(as far as i know, correct me if i am wrong ;) )

Any ideas?

Cheers

Alex

Screenshot Program for FSX and FS9 on Win7

Eric, On your first video brodcast I asked if you were having trouble with screenshots on your new PC running Windows7. You said you were. Will I found one that works with both FSX and FS9. Its a program called Aeroshot Image Capture. You can download it from FSPilotShop. It's only $18.00. I've attached some screenshots taken in FSX and FS9. The program works great. You can set where to save your pics, and in what format.It uses your printsren key, and does not pause your fightsim. I gives a sound to let you know it captured your shot. Check it out.

Airplane Recommendations

Hey Guys,

I really like your show. I would like to recommend to aircrafts, both were released on Dec 25, I don't think they were mentioned during your show. Both aircrafts are products of love.

First one is the Westland Lysander, I was captivated by its unique looks, and bought it right away. It has really amazing history - RAF used them to drop and pick up agents in France during WWII. It is easy to fly, but hard to land, great aircraft!!

TweakFS Recommendation from George

Hi guys

Happy New Year from the other side of the pond, were it is freezing cold, and I am buried in about 20cms of snow.

Some time ago, in a previous email or voicemail, I mentioned a suite of products for both FS10 and FSX from Australia, which can be found at www.tweakfs.com The utilities are mainly about providing you with tools that make it easy for you to tweak your Flight Sim.

I have had these utilities for some time now - but like most things, the more you explore the more you find. One that I would like to suggest as a 'hot' pick, is TweakFlight, which is available for both FS10 and FSX for US$24.95.What is even better is that you can download a demo version for 30 days

For those simmers that like setting up scenarios or approaches, this allows you to do it all within a few key strokes, and you can continue to tweak it as and when you want.

The navigation bar at the top covers 9 screens, all with different parameters that can be set for your flight, which can then be saved and edited at will.

The screens cover:-

Main - Title, description, date, time, camera views and aircraft position. This is neat, as you can select your position by just double clicking on a zoomable and moveable map, and set your height, heading and speed - just so cool.

Autopilot - any of the functions of the autopilot can be preset

Engines - for each engine you can set, Throttle, Prop, Mixture, RPM and Cowl and synchronise (or not) the engines

USB video card + flight sim = terrible, terrible idea

Hi Eric,

Just a quick note: I can't speak for flight sim, but for X-Plane, no user should ever attempt to put any kind of X-Plane output onto a USB video card! The performance will be truly dreadful. X-Plan requires a "real" graphics card, meaning:

- A graphics card that has a high quality 3-d accelerator on it and - that graphics card has to be in a slot wide enough for x-plane to just blast it with data. PCIe x16 is really a must, PCIe x16 2.0 is even better. USB is waaaay too slow.

Yep...the processing has to come from somewhere. :-)

It's a very smart idea for low-end computers...where the goal is to bring down price, where the CPU is already over-powered, where casual users probably aren't even using the second CPU. It's similar to what happened with sound cards...there's just no point in shipping sound cards with DSPs any more - that DSP is one more part, $20 more of cost (and that matters now, things are so cheap) when the second core can do sound mixing with 3% of its capacity.

Of course, as flight simmers this sucks because it means the mainstream trend in hw (and what "most" new users who get a flight sim will already own) is a machine inappropriate to running FS X or x-plane. If I browse Dell's site, I can't even find the _option_ to put an ATI or NV card in most of the time, and when you do find a video card you find ...

... wait for it ...

Radeon 4350 NVideo Geforce GTS 240

(You will find the 4350 at the BOTTOM of the 4xxx list - it is the most stripped down config. Surprisingly the GTS 240 isn't the bottom of the NV barrel, but being two levels down from the "real" part, the 280, it's going to be terrible for flight sim.)

So a user who tries to build a "nice" machine before getting into flight sim is going to pay more and still get a machine that tanks. Sigh...

cheers Ben

Answer to last week's Question About Object Placing

I was listening to your show last night (great show BTW) and i heard someone was looking for a freeware object placer.

Now i use Instant scenery for my scenery design which is great if you want to spend the money

before i brought Instant scenery i got this freeware one recommend to me.

it's called whisplacer, it basically just uses the object libraries you've got in your FSX installation and im sure that there is a nav becon in one of the libaries that he could use. so try it out

Cheers,

Mitchell Sale OZx Developer

From the forum: Show Suggestions from Flinty72

G'Day FSBreak Crew,

Loving the show especially the live broadcasts which I was lucky enough to catch the end of today. So I had an idea recently for the show and wanted to put it out to you guys for consideration. Not that I think the shows needs revamping but consider it a possible enhancement, if you think it is worthy...

Anyway it struck me that each of you have specific areas of great knowledge & experience within the show. Now what if each you had a dedicated segment in the show to these areas? These segments could then be included into the show in different ways, either all segments each week, fortnightly or monthly or on a rolling rotation making it a monthly cycle between each indiovidual segment.

Recommendations

PS, we have recieved this release for the newest editing of the MyCockpit.org podcast. A great way to get more in depth coverage on cockpit building in podcast form:

Mycockpit.org, the worlds largest community for home cockpit builders is proud to announce two new Podcasts, in association with FSBreak.net.

1. "Tips And Discussions" 2nd Edition, with Ian. In this Edition of "Tips And Discussions", we talk to the famous Ian, well know for his wonderful B737 project. In this edition we talk all about "Inputs"

2. "Builder Of The Month" for February 2010, Shawn Lund. Shawn is the creator of an unique project, someone who has chosen something different, since he is not exactly a home cockpit builder but I am sure we can draw a lot of inspiration from his approach..